Ephesus and the gospel: an unlikely story

Anyone who has attended a professional or college sporting event in a large stadium can identify with the electrifying thrill of being part of a crowd that is passionately unified about one game, one team, one experience.  The sheer number of people involved lends a feeling of power to the event. As the saying goes, “and the crowd goes wild.” Wild is the right word to use because there is a sense of controlled chaos when this happens.

Consider two clutch shots from the recent NBA and NCAA basketball seasons and imagine you are part of these wild crowds. The first is Rajon Rondo’s 3-pointer near the end of game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against Philadelphia.

The second, and more chaotic as the crowd rushes the court afterward, is Christian Watford’s buzzer beater to lift Indiana University over Kentucky.

TD Garden, Boston’s home court where Rondo hit his shot, has a capacity of 17,565 people. Similary, Assembly Hall in Indiana, where Watford sunk the game winning three, holds 17,472 people. Having that many people in passionate agreement about one thing at one time is a remarkable (and loud) experience.

Now imagine that you are in Ephesus in the first century AD, at this amphitheatre: http://www.360cities.net/image/ephesusamphitheatre#43.70,17.60,70.0. It is filled to its capacity of 25,000 people, over 50% percent more people than either TD Garden or Assembly Hall can house. The crowd is irate and confused and has been shouting in unison for over 2 hours (longer than the length of an entire basketball game), “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Can you envision the intensity and magnitude of this scene? This is exactly what Paul experienced while he was in Ephesus.

Ephesus in was a very significant city in antiquity. It served as the Roman capital of Asia Minor in the first century and was also a commercial center for land and sea trade. The city was wealthy, as evidenced by its enormous structures that are made primarily out of marble – a very impressive sight. When I walked through the streets, the power and influence it once boasted is palpable. Last but certainly not least, Ephesus was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the great Temple of Artemis.

Ephesus presented an environment that was very hostile to Christianity. The culture of the city was drenched with the worship of the fertility goddess Artemis. It was a facet of daily life in ancient Ephesus. This cult in its various forms with the goddess called by different names (Artemis, Diana, Sybile) had existed for over 5000 years before Jesus was born. Imagine the rich history of Christianity that has grown and developed over 2000 years. At the point when Paul reached Ephesus, the cult of Artemis had a history over twice as long as what Christianity has now. It was deeply entrenched and woven into the fabric of the culture. In the mind of most reasonable people, Christianity (or any foreign religion for that matter), would not have stood a chance in such a city and such a time.

Nevertheless, Paul faithfully preached and taught in Ephesus for over two years, “so that all the Greeks and Jews who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.” (Acts 19:10) Eventually, a silversmith named Demetrius began to recognize the Way (as Christianity was called) as a potential threat to his business of making silver shrines of Artemis. This fact can only speak to the great power that God was displaying in Ephesus at that time. To think that any religion could make a dent in the cult of Artemis would be almost laughable. But God was using Paul at the time to drive out evil spirits, heal diseases, and convert even sorcerers to this new religion. Demetrius in his wisdom recognized this as a major potential problem to the economy of Ephesus.

He called together all of the workmen in related trades that made a living off the cult of Artemis. When he explained to them the danger of the Way, and what it could mean for their businesses, they were infuriated. Soon the entire city of Ephesus was stirred up and rushed to the amphitheater. This is where we again pick up our image of the wild crowd of 25,000 people, roaring in unison for over two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Being Christians in the midst of that crowd must have been a little bit like being the lone Utah Jazz fans at a Celtics game Tim and I went to in March. Obviously, the comparison fails when you place the two events on a scale of importance, but the sense of aloneness is similar. Two rows in front of us sat a man and woman in classic Jon Stockton jerseys. Needless to say, they were heckled and berated for the entire game, most notably by a boisterous half-drunk Celtics fan who, after a good Boston play, would stand up, point and yell witty remarks at the couple. They were very clearly in the minority.

Thankfully, the power of Jesus is stronger than the power of John Stockton, and despite the tremendous odds against it, Christianity flourished and made Ephesus a significant city in its history. Paul not only lived there for two years but wrote 1 Corinthians while there. The letters Paul wrote to Timothy were addressed to him while Timothy was assisting the church in Ephesus. And John’s three letters were also written while he was giving leadership to the church in Ephesus. Lastly, it was in Ephesus that Paul gave his only recorded address to Christians. All of Paul’s other speeches that were written down were given to unbelievers. In his farewell address to the Ephesians, Paul says, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

It is sobering to note that even after the display of God’s power which caused Christianity to grow in Ephesus, John in the book of Revelation records these hard words for the church there. “I know your deeds, your hard work and perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

There is a striking contrast between the words of Paul and the picture that John gives us of the church in Ephesus. Paul never waivers in his understanding and fulfillment of his ultimate task in life. On the other hand, the church of Ephesus, even while struggling and persevering, has forgotten their first love.

As I’ve considered the history of Ephesus, I’m challenged in a few directions. First, I believe I have no authority to determine what situation is too hopeless for the gospel to spread or what ground is too infertile for it to take root. The power of God supercedes all of our expectations. My responsibility, as Paul stated, is to “complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.” Secondly, I must hold onto my first love, keeping Christ at the front and center. In doing those two things, the grace and power of God is given room to work in the world. In the end, all that is left at the site of the temple of Artemis is one solitary column – all else has been taken away, recycled (in the Haggia Sophia, somewhat ironically) or destroyed. But the gospel of God’s grace that Paul preached has continued to spread.

Remains of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus

In Defense of Optimism

I do not typically enjoy being around optimists. They exhaust me. Usually when I am interacting with them, my mind strains vigorously to sift through their positivity and find something phony so that I may at last absolve myself the responsibility of taking the person seriously. I suppose I am assuming that most optimists are not being completely authentic in their response to a given situation. Perhaps I do not despise optimists as much as I simply dislike people who are inauthentic. For if I am completely honest with myself, I believe there lies in me the makings of a closet optimist. Sure, on the exterior I like to remain cynical and scoff at those that are dandied and disillusioned by the temporary sugar highs of life. But internally, I am similarly wired, with hopes tied to emotions of improvements to be made to my life and situation, with the overall belief that at its foundation existence is good. Or as John Mayer might sing, "I know the heart of life is good."

For the last couple weeks I have been reading a biography of G.K Chesterton called Defiant Joy. The title is fantastic for such a man and the excerpts the author uses from Chesterton's writings and critics are well chosen. The author (Belmonte) gives the refreshing image of a man who is the most perfect depiction of the word jovial. Anyone who has spent any amount of time reading Chesterton knows with what light, wit and life the man writes. Chesterton has an amazing ability to bring humor and light to profound topics while somehow not disrupting the seriousness of the subject.

As so often happens when I read Chesterton, he slaps me upside the head with the simplest of statements. No complicated language, just light words with heavy implications. He writes, "No man knows how much he is an optimist, even when he calls himself a pessimist, because he has not really measured the depths of his debt to whatever created him and enabled him to call himself anything. At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder; so that a man sitting in a chair might suddenly understand that he was actually alive, and be happy."

I am waiting for my wife to write on the book she read about humans being dependent rational animals. Because I think Chesterton struck gold when he realized the debt which we as individuals owe for our own existence. We did not bring about our own existence. How easily, in following Chesterton's quote, does that give us the greatest excitement to be alive. Perhaps only the grateful attitude gives way to the deepest joy. The deepest sense of appreciation for that which created us can restore the greatest joy to exist at all.

Optimists annoy me probably because I assume that they are being fake or have not endured enough hardship to think life is not rainbows and kittens. However, I believe Chesterton would argue that an "easy" life is not one void of bad things happening. Instead, it is of having never weighed the depths to which one is indebted to the other. When one is not cognizant of the appreciation that is owed, then it matters little what one accomplishes with his life. It leaves the door wide open to be disgusted and annoyed at every little thing that goes wrong.

Perhaps the height of the problem comes with the greatest tragedy of life - death. It is death that is allowed to creep into our belief as being the most unfair, unjust reality of our existence. To the unbeliever death is the expiration date of life, love, pleasure, and all else that goes with it.

C.S Lewis writes a great little piece in "The Worlds Last Night." He speaks of our Lord, weeping at the tomb of his friend. At first glance, what a confusing thing it is that the one who must have known he was to conquer death would find it a reasonable thing to cry at his friends passing when in just a few moments he would raise him from the dead. But perhaps this was one of the most human things Jesus did. Lewis writes, "Nothing will reconcile us to - well, its (death’s) unnaturalness. We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder..." 

Anyone who has had to go through the death of a close friend or family member knows the grief, the feeling of pure injustice that such a person had to die. It is such an event that can rattle the greatest of men to their knees and begin to doubt the "good" that they held supreme. We must identify death's unnaturalness and be grateful to the one who has defeated death, the proclaimer and creator of life itself. Only then can we live as the most authentic of optimists and live as defiant joy personified, as Chesterton did and spoke of here, in his own words:


"I had often called myself an optimist to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world.The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home." 
-Orthodoxy, G.K Chesterton

Tim

Free Will and the Laws of Nature

Someone recently asked me what my thoughts are on free will.  Specifically, they wanted to know if free will is something that could set us apart from robots.  If we imagine that there is a very complicated robot capable of sensing and responding to inputs in much the same way that a human does, on what grounds can we say that we are different from that robot?  On an intuitive level, one might be inclined to argue that humans are qualitatively different from such a robot because humans have free will, whereas the robot does not.

Before I discuss this scenario I want to stop and ask why we even care about free will.  Why do so many of us think that free will is important and that if we found out that we didn’t have free will it would be a tragedy?  I think there are several categories of reasons.  First we have experiential reasons.  We experience the world as if we had free will.  We believe that we have options about what actions we are going to choose and we are aware of ourselves making conscious decisions to act one way or another.  We have the experience of willing actions that we don’t feel compelled to will.  We even will things that go against what our natural inclinations are.  While these aren’t necessarily arguments for free will, they do demonstrate why we think free will might be important.  If it turns out that we don’t have free will, then reality is very different from how we experience it.

The second category of reasons is moral.  Many people think free will is necessary for there to be moral goodness, moral badness and moral responsibility.  If people are not free to choose their actions, then how can we appropriately praise or blame them for anything they do?  Or how can we call any of their actions morally good?  We don’t praise the moral attributes of washing machines, and it seems reasonable to say that one reason for this is because washing machines don’t have free will.  Their actions are determined.  They either work or they don’t work, but we never hold them morally responsible for their actions either way.  And we don’t say that they are morally good when they do work and morally bad when they don’t.  Intuitively, it would seem that if humans do not have free will, then humans could not be held morally responsible either, and human actions could never be judged to be morally good or morally bad.

The third category of reasons is theological.  These are probably the first reasons that come to my mind when I think about free will.  I think a lot of this can be attributed to the explicitly Arminian Christian culture that I grew up in.  Free will was an essential part of my understanding of Christianity in my adolescence.  It provided an alternative to the unpalatable doctrines of Calvinism.  I especially wanted to avoid the doctrine of limited atonement (the doctrine that Christ died only for the elect).  Believing in free will also gave me a well established theodicy to draw on.  Why is there suffering in the world?  Because humans have free will and they make bad choices.  Why did God give us free will?  Because God didn’t want robots; God wanted people who could make morally substantive choices and who could choose to love God back.  It all fits together nicely.

Given these intuitive reasons for believing in and caring about free will, one might wonder why anyone would doubt that humans have free will.  Nevertheless, many people do doubt it.  There are two major theses in particular that, if accepted, combine to make a powerful case for either the non-existence of free will or the incoherence of the idea of free will.  The first thesis is causal determinism and the second is incompatibilism.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Free Will defines causal determinism as “the thesis that the course of the future is entirely determined by the conjunction of the past and the laws of nature.”  On this view, given a set of starting conditions, all future events can be comprehensively explained as the necessary consequences of natural laws being played out.  Think of the game Angry Birds.  In the world of Angry Birds there are “laws of nature,” the rules of the game that dictate how everything in the world of Angry Birds interacts.  Someone sat down and wrote out equations that determine how much force is necessary to kill pigs of different sizes, or to break through different types of barriers, etc.  These rules mimic laws that we find in nature.  For each level of Angry Birds you are also given a set of initial conditions (i.e. the arrangement of pigs and other objects on the level).  The only initial conditions that you have control over (ignoring some of the mid-flight capabilities for the moment) are the angle and velocity with which you release your birds from the slingshot.  All the events that occur after you release a bird are completely determined by the combination of the initial conditions and the “laws of nature” that govern the game.  Nothing else comes into play.  Analogously, given a set of initial conditions in the real world, causal determinism claims that the laws of nature will dictate all future events.

It doesn’t follow from causal determinism that free will does not or cannot exist.  First one has to accept an intermediate thesis known as incompatibilism.  Incompatibilism simply claims that free will is not compatible with causal determinism.  That may seem trivial, but it is a point of a lot of debate.  Some philosophers think that even if causal determinism is true that free will would still be possible.  These people are called compatibilists.  I’m not going to present arguments for compatibilism versus incompatibilism.  I’m only going to point out that there is not a general consensus on the matter within the philosophical community.  For the purposes of this blog post I’m going to assume that most of my (three) readers are incompatibilists (i.e. they believe that determinism is incompatible with free will) and move on to a discussion of the laws of nature as it relates to determinism.

For a long time it looked to me like causal determinism might be an unavoidable conclusion (pardon my bad sense of humor).  For someone who takes mathematical, physical, chemical and biological laws seriously, it’s hard to see where there is any space for free will.  For example, where does free will show up in the chemical processes that govern my brain?  I know that there is a continuous chain of chemical events that takes place in my brain every time that I perform an action.  I also know that if someone were to analyze these chains of events they would be able to explain them completely in terms of the laws of nature acting on a set of initial conditions.  They wouldn’t need to introduce the idea of a non-physical will in order to explain what was going on.  It would be entirely superfluous and undesirable.

This perplexed me for many years until I discovered a new way of thinking about the laws of nature.  There are two major philosophical camps when it comes to conceptions of the laws of nature.  One camp claims that the laws of nature are physically necessary in some way, and that they are prescriptive or “pushy,” as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Causal Determinism puts it.  In other words, the laws of nature don’t simply describe what we observe in the physical world, they actually make the physical world behave in the way that it does; they cause events.  This is the camp of the necessitarians.  Those in the alternative camp are called regularists.

According to the regularity position, the laws of nature are not pushy explanations; they are merely correct descriptions of generalized regularities that we observe in nature.  The laws of nature do not govern the universe, dictating the path that every particle must follow and imposing order on the physical world.  They do not cause events, as if abstract, non-physical laws were even capable of that.  Rather, events are caused by things in the world and the laws of nature are summaries of the regularities that we have observed in these things.

This latter view is the one that I take and it turns out that under this view, the problem of free will versus determinism basically disappears.  If the laws of nature are not pushy, if they are not physically necessary, if they are not the cause of events, then causal determinism loses a lot of its plausibility.  Moreover, if the laws of nature are simply descriptions of the regularities in the world, then there is plenty of space for free will.  The laws of nature do not dictate our actions.  Instead, the laws of nature depend on what we choose.

Now I realized that last statement seems like it ignores certain solid and unchosen characteristics of the physical world.  For example, our choices do not affect the law of gravity.  It remains the same whether we like it or not.  But I think this can be accounted for if we distinguish between the causal powers of animate and inanimate objects.  Electrons, for example, have causal powers of attraction and repulsion of other electrically charged particles.  Rocks have gravitational powers and properties like hardness.  And all physical objects have various properties that cause them to interact with other objects in predictable ways.  As a result of these causal powers, we notice patterns of interaction and regularities.  It’s my view that if the world were limited to inanimate objects that it would be entirely deterministic (excepting quantum-level phenomena which I won’t discuss here), because a rock cannot chose to act in one way rather than another.  Its behavior is determined by its non-volitional causal powers and properties interacting with the objects around it.

Animals and humans, on the other hand, have wills.  They are volitional beings, able to choose one action over another.  If all beings were volitional, then the laws of nature could end up being very chaotic.  For example, if every electron could choose what its electrical charge would be, who knows what would happen to the fabric of the universe.  Higher-order beings probably could not exist in such an environment.  So the stability provided by lower-order, non-volitional beings create a context in which higher-order, volitional beings can move and interact.  And while deterministic laws of nature may arise from non-volitional beings, that does not mean that the universe is governed by deterministic laws.  The laws of nature that arise from higher-order beings are anything but deterministic.  Just look at the hard physical sciences versus the biological or social sciences.

Let me try to bring this back around to the opening question.  Is free will something that could separate us from robots?  My first instinct is to say “yes” because I think humans are capable of true volition whereas robots are only capable of mimicking volitional behavior.  However, that’s a meaty metaphysical claim and I would probably have to get into discussions of consciousness, philosophy of language, and phenomenology in order to address it.  I can’t do that here, but I’ll just hint at some trains of thought that might be worth further investigation.  The first thought is that if one believes in some form of mind/body dualism, then one could argue that humans are different from robots because humans have minds.  The second thought is that humans are language users and, as such, are capable of reflective thought.  That is something unique to humans that seems to be qualitatively different from animal communication.  One could argue that this ability also sets us apart from robots.  The third thought (which may be related to the first two) is that it might be incoherent to talk about a robot making a choice between different courses of action because robots do not have a thought world.  One could argue on phenomenological grounds that it is appropriate to say that humans make choices about courses of actions, whereas all we can appropriately say about robots is that they execute the software written for them.



-David